


The Worthless People

by JaneTheHopeful



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Despair, Dysfunctional Friendship, Fire mention, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Komaeda has bad ableist opinions that are wrong, Komaeda is a danger to himself (and others sometimes), Suicidal Thoughts, Super Dangan Ronpa 2 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-04-28 19:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5102048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneTheHopeful/pseuds/JaneTheHopeful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Komaeda is certain he understands that some people matter and some people don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Without Talent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The circumstances of this story are based on PartridgeOnAPearTree's Transversal, but the writing is entirely my own. I hope you enjoy my take on Komaeda.

Hinata hadn't talked to Komaeda in a month. He talked a little, he'd say "hello" back if Komaeda greeted him and other polite things. But they hadn't had a real conversation in a month. Komaeda had gone back to doing the things he'd done in middle school: he studied, he read, and he poked his head into clubs and events that didn't want him. He knew better than to think he deserved more than such an unimportant existence, without even the illusion that he had made one person's life better. Still, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with himself anymore. He sat alone in the library thinking about this, staring blankly at a passage in a book about evolutionary biology.

The defining feature of Komaeda's life was his utter improbability. He managed to be sick all the time. He managed to win games he didn't know the rules to. He managed to have been kidnapped on more than one occasion. He managed to live alone since age nine without anyone intervening. He managed to be enormously wealthy. He managed to understand the world in a way no one else could grasp. It was only natural that when faced with someone so nonsensical, people would react with hatred. Hinata had been the aberration. Really, what surprised Komaeda most was that they'd both lived long enough for Hinata to choose to leave him. It was lonely, but something good would come of this.

\--

The fight had started, before a single word was thrown, in the library. A thin, black book with no bar code was on the shelf. Since it was the one book that didn't belong, Komaeda found it instantly. _On the Hope's Peak Academy Reserve Course Program_ read the first page beyond the cover. 

The Reserve Course. As he read about it, Komaeda, who was normally so composed, couldn't stand it. Hope's Peak was sacred to him. It brought together the most talented high schoolers, the people who held the hope for humanity's future in their hands, and gave them the power to accomplish all that they can, to overcome the despair and corruption in the world. It celebrated and uplifted the talented few who could salvage the world. The Reserve Course held no respect for any of that; it was vandalism to his temple of hope. How dare they, really? How dare they. 

The Reserve Course consisted of arrogant souls from the talentless masses. They paid incredible fees to get in, maybe hoping the success associated with Hope's Peak could be earned by buying it. In reality, they were a last resort to keep Hope's Peak open as it lost funding. It was shameful that such a marvelous place had to stoop so low as to let normal people believe that they deserved to attend.

Komaeda was as low as the Reserve Course, he knew, and could also taint the school. He'd only got in by a lottery, after all. But at least he knew his place. 

He'd expected Hinata to understand his frustration with such disgrace. Hinata, the student whose talent was a secret, was usually so understanding. 

"They're allowing the school to continue the work you love so much. Maybe they are arrogant and naïve, but they aren't hurting anybody." is what Hinata said.

Komaeda tried to explain. "But Hope's Peak shouldn't have to do such a thing! It's an indication of the state of the world that the philanthropists refuse to invest enough in the children who carry our country's future. The fact that the Reserve Course has a reason to exist is a shame in and of itself, don't you think? And the teachers here don't deserve to squander any energy on students who nothing will come from."

Hinata paused and for a moment Komaeda thought he could coming around. Then Hinata looked straight at him. "No. I won't accept that there are useless people in this world. Those students have gotta matter." Hinata turned away. "Anyway, seeya." He walked away just like that. 

\--

As much Komaeda tried to read about how phylogenetic trees were organized, he couldn't do it. The words slipped straight through him and he continuously fell into self-pity. Maybe he should do something else. Do something that might actually be useful of him. Maybe there was someone who needed to vent their anger who'd like to use him as a punching bag. He smirked slightly at how appropriate that would be and sat up see who was around.

The only person in his immediate vicinity was Koizumi, the Super High School Level Photographer, an assertive girl in his year who tried to be at least as courteous as she was with the other boys to Komaeda, but probably still avoided him. She was too nice to hurt him. Almost a shame. Komaeda knew she only came to the library to study and she would want to get that over with as quickly she could. She wouldn't want to be distracted. He was so bored and restless, though, that he couldn't help himself but greet her.

Komaeda walked up behind Koizumi, a few paces away, and leaned forward with his hands in his pockets. He was smiling, because that's what he was supposed to do. "Hello, Koizumi-san. Do you need anything?"

She turned her head quickly. She paused a moment looking at him and said "Oh, Komaeda. Hello. I'm a little busy right now," before turning back around.

He sat next to her, a few feet down the table where she was working and forced his face into a friendly grin. "I know. That's why I asked if I could do anything for you. Maybe a little help is all you need for this day to turn out brilliant." 

"Please, don't even bother. It's so unbecoming that you'd try to pick up a girl to replace your best friend."

Komaeda's smile faded as he processed that, but pushed it back into place. "...ah, is that what it seems like? That's not what I was going for. I would never want to bother someone like you with something like that. Honestly, all I want is to be useful."

"Um, well, you're good at math, right?" Koizumi asked.

"I understand what we're doing in class." 

"Great. Well, I've finished my math homework, but could you check it over for me?," Koizumi rummaged through her bag and placed her assignment in front of Komaeda. "I'm not very confident that I understand it." Then she went back to something she was writing.

He looked over it, comparing it to his own work that he grabbed from his bag. He circled the items where her answers didn't match his and noted in one spot that he'd used a different formula. This took him around fifteen minutes. 

He slid the paper back towards Koizumi. "I don't know that I'm right, but I marked where I got different answers." He smiled.

"Okay, thanks, I'll look at it when I'm done with this," she said.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be any more useful to you."

Koizumi sat up straight and looked at Komaeda, her eyebrows pressed down and her lips pulled tightly together. After a moment, she said "You always talk like this and I don't get it. Like, okay, I get that you don't think much of yourself. But what makes you think that everyone here is so special? My talent doesn't even mean anything; I just take happy, trivial pictures of smiling people. Y'know, some of us mostly are just unremarkable high schoolers."

Komaeda chuckled nervously. "Maybe you don't see it, but not everyone has an artistic eye like you. Of course you're special! You make beautiful things out of a twisted and dull world. That's enough to inspire hope in anyone!"

Another pause. "Well, thanks. But compared to everyone else..." Koizumi looked at the table as she trailed off. "But I need to get this done. You've done what you can, now leave me alone."

Komaeda wanted to protest. He hated to see someone so talented selling themself short. Still, he obliged. It wasn't his place to argue with someone who had told him to leave.

\--

Two months, now. School life continued normally. He kept anticipating his luck acting on him, but nothing came aside from getting three snacks from a vending machine when he payed for one, losing his voice on the day of an oral presentation, and other things that were normal for Komaeda. No despair was raised around him that would need a great hope to overcome it. In this world where he couldn't matter, he tested what that really meant.

In the middle of the night, Komaeda set up four large fans in the cafeteria, facing towards each other on the floor. With each of the fans on their highest power, he threw flour into the air. The white dust dispersed gently, ignorant of its purpose. A fair amount of the flour fell to the ground, but he was able to suspend enough of it to create a thin, white cloud. He emptied two one pound bags of flour and, to his luck, no one came through. 

He walked away from where the flour was and lit a match. He was really doing this. He wasn't going to wait for something to happen anymore. He was going to make his own tragedy for himself. He threw the match and the flour erupted into a momentary cloud of flame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure that flour works quite like that, but oh well.


	2. Without a Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People respond to Komaeda making an explosion.

The flames burst. The back of Komaeda's hand stung with intense pain. The fire was gone in an instant, but it had marked the floor. Komaeda huddled over his burn. There was a blare of alarms and cold water soaked his back. Soon, people walked downstairs, exiting the dorms. They weren't in the cafeteria, but he could hear them. It was so loud. Loud people, loud alarms, loud pulse, loud pain. 

Firefighters came in. Looking at the scene, it became clear that there was no remaining danger aside from Komaeda himself. Everyone went back to bed. Komaeda slept in the nurse's office.

\--

In the morning, the side of Komaeda's hand barely hurt as long as nothing touched it. It was a surface level burn. He wasn't sure if it was good luck that he was hardly hurt or bad luck that he'd gotten burned at all. Maybe both. Maybe just bad luck, the good luck being that his plan had worked.

He had to miss the beginning of classes to talk with staff about the consequences of his actions. He had to pick up more than the typical share of chores and his meetings with Matsuda, the Super High School Level Neurologist, would be more frequent. Komaeda was told to watch himself, as the acceptance of a random student as Super High School Level Good Luck was already controversial and expelling him would not be as great a loss to the institution as it would be if he'd had an actual talent. The school would keep his misdemeanor quiet, though, they had a reputation to uphold.

When he returned to his normal schedule, the other students were avoiding Komaeda more than usual, they were watching him closely or trying not to look at him at all. Saionji was clinging even closer to Koizumi than usual. An underclassman declared he was to fight Komaeda, but was held back by his classmates.

At one point, Komaeda made accidental, split-second eye-contact with Souda, causing Souda to noisily whisper "he's looking at me," to Nidai. Komaeda laughed under his breath. 

Komaeda found himself barely needing to talk to anyone. It felt like something had finally gone right in his world. People were recognizing him to be the terrible encroachment on the school he always had been. The administration had gone easy on him, sure, but the other students felt threatened still and they'd most certainly gather a powerful hope to do him real justice. It would be amazing. Maybe someone would even dare to kill him.

\--

The Super High School Level Imposter (who'd introduced themself as Byakuya Togami, but had been known as Imposter since the original Byakuya Togami had shown up) called a meeting of their entire class except Komaeda. Komaeda tried to listen in through the wall. The meeting wasn't much of a secret and it wasn't hard to sketch out the halls and find an adjacent room where he could do his best to hear without being seen. It was a classroom no one used this time of day.

Luckily for Komaeda, Imposter spoke loudly. "I'm sure it has come to everyone's attention that Nagito Komaeda caused a minor explosion in the school cafeteria," they began, "This is a cause of great concern, but we must act with caution and consider the possible consequences of our actions. This isn't a life or death situation at this time and it need not become one." Imposter didn't constantly take on other people's entire identities anymore, the way they once had in order to survive. However, during this meeting, they took on mimicking Togami's authoritative voice.

"Are you saying he might kill someone!? We should lock him up where he can't hurt us!" Souda said. 

"I just said we need to act with caution and consideration," Imposter retorted. 

"Then what do you propose we need done?" asked Sonia.

"I was just getting to that," Imposter said impatiently. "Before we make any plans, we have to know why this happened. Who's talked to Komaeda most recently?"

Komaeda smiled. They were putting thought in this. Imposter surely would lead everyone craft a magnificent hope, plotting how best to take Komaeda down.

"Um," Tsumiki said "Komaeda-san f-fell down the stairs during the day of the-the-the incident. Yesterday, I mean. Sorry! I-I talked to him then. Uhh, what would be useful to know? I'll t-try not being useless to you."

"Hmph. You're never useless. Go on ahead, tell us if you noticed anything different from his usual," Imposter said.

"I-I mean, there was nothing that unusual. For Komaeda-san, that is. Unusual in general, maybe. He told me n-not to worry over him so much because things were going to be g-getting better. He said that, um, even if things weren't going to get better for him, th-th-th-that, um..." Tsumiki took a deep breath.

"Just tell us what he said, already," groaned Kuzuryuu.

Tsumiki whined and Komaeda couldn't understand what she said next. Then she raised her voice. "...our hope was going to overcome! I-I-I-I didn't think to ask him what we'd overcome! I'm sorry!"

"Thank you, Tsumiki. From that we can probably assume his actions were premeditated," Imposter said. It was a simple deduction, but Komaeda wanted to commend Imposter, nonetheless. His neck ached from leaning against the wall, but he grinned, excited to hear his classmates work together like this. 

"Anyone else?" Imposter asked. 

After a significant pause, Tanaka said "That pale one is a secretive creature. I am beginning to suspect that he is some sort of ghoul, hiding his suspicious ongoings away in his hollow."

"I don't really get what you're saying, but he really comes off that way, like suspicious or something. D'ya think maybe this was a long time coming?" Owari said.

"I'm not sure." It was Hinata. Komaeda's stomach lurched, even though he had known Hinata had bitter feelings. He picked at the bandage on his injured hand, still forcing a smile, even with no one there. "He probably thinks he's doing what's best."

"That's no excuse for him being nuisance to everyone. And really, he's probably just trying to satisfy some awful hope fetish," Saionji sneered.

"No, no. Just. Give me a second," Hinata said. "I'm so stupid."

"We already knew that," Saionji said, "Why don't you tell us something new?"

"He might be unreliable, but..." Koizumi started, the rest of her phrase muffled through the wall. Then she started again, "Imposter, maybe it would be better that you and Hinata worked one-on-one with this. We've all got stuff to do and most of us have nothing to contribute to this, anyway. You can search us out if something comes up and you need one of us."

There were murmurs of agreement, people saying they had lyrics to work out or that they didn't want to bother with Komaeda, anyway. 

"If that's how you feel, I guess that settles it. This meeting is adjourned. Everyone but Hinata can leave for now," Imposter declared. 

The class left the room noisily and then things were quiet. Komaeda kept his ear pressed to the wall. He could tell Imposter and Hinata were talking, but he couldn't make out any words. He waited.

The two of them were speaking too quietly for him to really hear, but after awhile it sounded to Komaeda like Hinata might be crying. He removed his head from the wall and stretched his aching neck. If Hinata really was crying, Komaeda had reached a new level of disgusting. Komaeda went back to his room hoping to be killed in a freak accident before he got there.

\--

Komaeda slept in. He missed his first class for the second day in a row. He honestly didn't care. He was disappointed that there didn't seem to be a plan for his comeuppance, though. He didn't expect to see Hinata sitting on the floor outside his room.

Hinata was doing homework and looked up when Komaeda opened the door. Neither of them said anything for a moment.

"Why are you here? Aren't your grades important to you?" Komaeda said flatly.

Hinata grimaced and looked down. He gathered his things together. "I think you're more important."

Komaeda raised his chin and looked down at Hinata as Hinata stood up. "Heh. I make you miserable. I tried to blow up the school. I'm too disgusting for you to get anything from being nice to me."

"You weren't trying to blow up the school. You're smart. There's much more effective explosives here that you would've used if you seriously wanted to hurt anyone."

Komaeda laughed. "Maybe. You're probably right."

"I'm worried about you. What are we supposed get from you scaring us?" Hinata's voice wavered, but his face stayed steady. He looked straight into Komaeda's eyes. 

"It makes you and your hope stronger when you face despair that you must overcome." 

Hinata sighed. "Because life isn't despairing enough without your interference." Hinata laughed nervously at his own joke. Then he gritted his teeth and stiffened. "Komaeda, I don't think you need to... help anyone else... to matter. I know you don't believe it, but you matter because you exist."

Komaeda raised an eyebrow. "You're right. I don't believe it."

Hinata sighed again with a pained smile. "Hell, since I'm being honest... I'm in your classes because of special circumstances, but," he took a deep breath in, "I'm-I'm a Reserve Course student."

Komaeda laughed in a sharp, aching burst. He clutched the insides of his jacket pockets. It didn't make sense. Hinata was too good for that. Hinata was much better than what the Reserve Course was supposed to be.

Hinata wasn't moving at all as Komaeda tried to steady his breath.

Komaeda stared at the ground when he finally spoke. "Maybe your talent was overlooked, but... For someone with no spectacular presence about you... There's something that's felt. You're a special person; that's probably why 'special circumstances' came to you."

Hinata was still tense, but a slight smile rose to his face.

\--

After classes, Hinata and Komaeda caught up with each other after two months of not really speaking.

Komaeda talked about how biology class frustrated him. He didn't like how messy evolution was. Something as clumsy as a lancelet, without specialized strategies or even fins, had survived in its own evolutionary line for hundreds of millions of years. They were probably important to the balance of the ecosystem or something, of course, but their pitiful existence was embarrassing.

Hinata talked about a day when he had gotten to class and found nobody there. He thought class had been cancelled and he was the only one who had not gotten word. He took out his homework and figured he might just park himself there, anyway, get something done. It was only when their classmates started showing up that Hinata realized he'd gotten to class an hour early.

They spent hours talking and they both talked about a lot of things. Komaeda didn't get how Hinata could forgive someone like him, but he wanted to believe something good could come from it. When they separated for the night, they were smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually kinda like how this turned out?? I'm sappy whoops.


End file.
